1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a simulation apparatus used for such applications such as traffic safety education, games, training and so forth.
2. Description of Background Art
For a simulated experience of the operation of an airplane, an automobile, a motorcycle, a bicycle and so forth, various simulation apparatus have been proposed that individually correspond to a particular vehicles and have been partly placed into practical use.
A simulation apparatus sometimes executes a command for changing a mode, for changing a display method of a monitor and so forth in addition to the original operations of a vehicle. When a simulation apparatus is operated, preferably a user is absorbed in the original operations of the vehicle as far as possible. Therefore, in the execution of a command described above, preferably a speech command to be executed through speech recognition is used to avoid the use of the hands and the feet. From such a background as just described, a simulator which detects particular phrase data registered in advance by means of a speech recognition apparatus has been proposed. See, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 55-6307.
While a simulation apparatus includes a computer for the control use, if processes for speech recognition are performed in addition to the control of a vehicle, then the processing load applied to the computer is increased. To incorporate a computer that is ready for such an increased processing load requires an increase in the cost. Further, the control of a vehicle exhibits different processing loads depending upon the situation on the simulated operation such as an operation mode, and when the load is light, the computer sometimes indicates an excessive capacity.
On the other hand, where a large number of commands are prepared, the data amount of the phrase data corresponding to them is great. Accordingly, the computer is obliged to access the large amount of data, which gives rise to a drop in the processing speed. Further, as the data amount of phrase data increases, the possibility that analogous data may be present increases, resulting in the possibility that a wrong recognition of the phrase data may occur.